


Terpsichore

by gellavonhamster



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Pre-Canon, Strip Tease, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 03:46:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18731044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellavonhamster/pseuds/gellavonhamster
Summary: Beatrice dances, Lemony talks about literature, Bertrand thinks too much.





	Terpsichore

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Терпсихора](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634354) by [gellavonhamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellavonhamster/pseuds/gellavonhamster). 



“As to Remarque, I believe that _All Quiet on the Western Front_ is overrated. The same could be said of _Three Comrades_ ,” Lemony argues as he unbuttons his shirt. “A classic case of everyone being familiar only with the books made popular by their screen adaptations. _Spark of Life_ , for instance, deserves much more appreciation. So does _Heaven Has No Favorites_.” 

“Hmm. I share your opinion on _Spark of Life,_ ” Bertrand hangs his sweater on the back of the chair, sits down on the edge of the bed, and starts undoing his wristwatch. “But _Heaven Has No Favorites_ … no, can’t agree. I found it rather superficial.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as one of those who consider any book centered on a love story superficial.”

“Please don’t put words into my mouth. I never said that,” Bertrand puts the wristwatch on the nightstand, under a pot-bellied table lamp with a motley shade, and turns to face Lemony again. Lemony is fighting the buttons on the cuffs of his shirt, and it appears they’re winning this battle so far. “It’s just that it looks a great deal weaker when compared to his war novels. If it had been his only book I’ve read, I might have well thought of it differently. Need some help?”

“Be so kind,” Lemony extends his hands to him, and Bertrand unbuttons first the left cuff, then the right one. “Still, you have to agree that the problem of denying the inevitable or resigning yourself to it…”

“Snicket, why are we talking about literature when we’re about to have sex?”

“Well,” it looks like Lemony isn’t embarrassed or bewildered by this question in the slightest, “because Beatrice asked us not to start without her and I thought that while waiting for her, we could revisit our yesterday’s discussion?”

“If you’re not going to start without Beatrice, what are you doing with my belt?”

“Helping you unbuckle it, like you just helped me with the buttons,” Lemony replies, his face perfectly honest. “But I can stop if you don’t want me to.”

Bertrand catches his hand and presses it back to his belt buckle. Perhaps a little lower. Perhaps, not to the buckle.

“Go ahead,” he allows.

Beatrice lives at the attic floor of a house situated on one of the busiest streets in the city, but today it’s surprisingly quiet here. No noise of cars or tipsy passers-by coming from outside, just the sounds of the house itself: the ticking of the clock, the creaking of the bed, his and Lemony’s breathing, Beatrice’s heels clicking in the living room. It is as though this apartment has suddenly wound up outside of time and space, and it shall always be late evening here, an early spring outside the window, and just the three of them and no one else. A sanctuary, Bertrand thinks, running his fingers through Lemony’s soft hair as Lemony kisses his neck, each time near the spot he’s planted the previous kiss at, like applying brush strokes to the canvas. A parallel dimension that strangers cannot enter. He doesn’t know how to express this feeling of blessed detachment from the world, and he isn’t sure it has to be spoken about.         

“Why is she wearing heels at home,” he whispers instead, and Lemony’s quiet laughter tickles his skin.

“Because, my good sir, in my own house I can wear whatever, even a diving suit.”

Beatrice is standing in the doorway, her arm resting on the doorpost. Lemony rolls off Bertrand clumsily, and both of them reclined on the bed, they watch her twirl in front of them like in front of the mirror, providing them with an opportunity to get a good look at her outfit.   

“How do I look?” Beatrice inquires. She seems so pleased with herself, there’s something touching about it. Bertrand smiles.

“Gorgeous,” he says, and immediately after him Lemony pronounces:

“Ravishing.”

Beatrice is wearing a flippy scarlet dress, black stockings, and high-heeled shoes with ankle straps – a highly convenient model for those who have to hide a certain tattoo from curious eyes. Her dark locks are shining in the dim light of the chandelier and falling on her shoulders that are covered with a silvery shawl. Bertrand hasn’t seen any of the things she’s wearing before, except perhaps for the stockings and – certainly – for the pearl necklace he and Lemony gave her for her last birthday as a present from them both.    

“Are we going somewhere?” Bertrand asks, trying not to sound disappointed. Beatrice looks gorgeous indeed, but after the supper, when she pulled them both close, and with an inscrutable smile ordered them to wait for her in the bedroom, he imagined the rest of the evening somewhat differently.  

Beatrice’s face breaks into a smile just as inscrutable as earlier:

“Esmé and I did some shopping today…”

Lemony, who cannot stand Esmé, and knows the feeling is mutual, lets out an anguished sigh. 

“…and I decided I have to show you everything I’ve bought,” Beatrice either doesn’t notice his reaction or pretends not to notice. “Everything at once,” with that, she turns around and disappears in the living room again. Bertrand’s instant conclusion is that she’s forgotten to grab some other today’s purchase, but it turns out that apparently she went to put on a record, because the silence of the apartment is suddenly ripped by the sounds of saxophone. Etta James, Bertrand observes automatically.   

Beatrice appears in the doorway again and makes her way towards them, swaying her hips.

“So what…” Bertrand starts, and immediately gets hit in the face with the balled-up silvery shawl. He looks up in confusion – and meets Beatrice’s eyes as she begins to lift her skirt slowly, smiling with abandon and continuing to move in sync with the music.   

“Now I see,” Bertrand says, and shifts his gaze to Lemony, who is watching Beatrice spellbound and longing and doesn’t seem the least bit surprised. “So does it happen often?”

“Occasionally,” Lemony responds, not looking at him, and Bertrand cannot help but feel a pang of… jealousy? Not of him but of everything these two have already had before him and will probably have after him. Sometimes it crosses his mind that their strange union that came into existence this winter is something fleeting, that he, in contrast to Beatrice and Lemony and their love, is something fleeting himself, because so far everything in his life has been fleeting, and that must have left its mark on him. These are destructive, pestilent, suffocating thoughts – so is Lemony’s ill-concealed certainty that both Beatrice and Bertrand are too good for him and he doesn’t deserve either of them individually, let alone both of them together. So is Beatrice’s slightly better-concealed certainty that in truth, none of them deserves all of this, none of them deserves their fragile secret happiness because they all are murderers and one day all of this shall be taken from them, _they_ shall be taken from each other. These thoughts are impossible to drive out completely; still, Bertrand puts the crumpled shawl to his face, buries his nose in it for a moment – the outfit may be new but the perfume is the same, Beatrice’s dressing room at the theatre smells just like that – and swears to himself at least to put them aside until later.               

“Do you also… occasionally?” he cannot stop himself from asking. Lemony chuckles softly:

“You know I’m not much of a dancer.”

“Eyes on me,” Beatrice orders half-strictly, half-playfully, and they obey, of course they obey her.  

Naturally, it’s not the first time Bertrand sees her dance. But the way she waltzes with him or someone else at another ball of the Duchess of Winnipeg, or dances Charleston with Monty in the Anwhistles’ drawing-room, has nothing in common with what she’s doing now. Bertrand isn’t even sure that could be called a dance: she’s flowing like quicksilver, moving her shoulders, her hips, her arms; she’s running her hands over her body, crumpling the dress; she presses her back to the doorpost and streams down it only to rise again. It seems like she doesn’t notice him and Lemony at all, although a stripper probably is supposed to… maintain the contact with her audience? Remind them that it’s all for them, stroke their ego? Beatrice could just as well be dancing on her own in front of the mirror, so whatever it is that she’s doing seems devoid of play-acting and very intimate, and Bertrand cannot fight the feeling that they’re spying on her and she doesn’t know.     

It is… thrilling.

She undoes her dress with her back turned to them; the zipper gapes open lazily, and after Beatrice frees her arms from the sleeves, the dress falls on the floor. Beatrice steps over the dress – and only then finally looks at them. _“And I just wanna make love to you, love to you,”_ toils away the old record player, yet Bertrand still hears Lemony heave a sigh next to him and squirm on the sheets a little, even though it’s not like he hasn’t seen any of this before – it’s not like Bertrand hasn’t seen any of this before either, actually.       

Fine, they haven’t seen this lingerie set. It makes sense now what Beatrice meant by “everything she’s bought”. All black – stockings with a garter belt, silk panties, and a bra made of translucent lace which, judging by its design (the recurrent necessity to work undercover has broadened Bertrand’s horizons in regard to ladies’ fashion), supports adequately but doesn’t really cover anything. Even from the bed Bertrand still can see her nipples through the twirls of ornaments. That’s all really beautiful, but Bertrand is almost sure that if any other woman was standing in front of him looking like this, some other woman he has never seen in nothing but underwear, never seen _without_ underwear, never held close and never tasted, that wouldn’t have had the same effect upon him. But it is Beatrice standing in front of him and watching him with her shining mischievous eyes and undoubtedly seeing with the naked eye how her little show affects him. Him and Lemony too, Bertrand notices when he turns away from Beatrice for a second and quickly runs his eyes over him.          

Beatrice bends down, swiftly unclasps the strap of one of her shoes, then the other, and kicks them off, careless.     

“Come on,” Bertrand begs in his head, though he doesn’t know for sure what he’s begging for.  

Then she makes her way to him. Perhaps she’s following some plan she has thought out earlier – after all, there’s nothing she enjoys better than coming up with some bizarre and unreasonably elaborated idea and putting it into action; or maybe she’s reading his mind, who knows. In any case, she hardly doubts he’ll guess what he has to do: at some point their ways, which had previously ran in parallel, crossed, and they found out they were great at taking each other’s hints.     

Beatrice detaches her stockings from the garters, takes the belt off, and throws it on the bed – Lemony reaches out to catch it but doesn’t manage to. Beatrice approaches the bed from the side Bertrand is reclining on, and puts her left foot on the bed without a word, her knee bent. For a moment her eyes meet Bertrand’s, and she gives him a barely discernible nod: go on.  

He takes off her stocking very slowly – not because he fears he might tear it but to keep touching her for longer, to run his fingers over her hot skin, to squeeze a little, but not enough to cause any pain. The moments stretch, thicken like honey, and all along Beatrice keeps her eyes on him. She’s got a fresh scratch on her knee – the only thing lacking is a flowery children’s plaster – and she must have shaved her legs either quite a long time ago or just not that carefully, and she’s so familiar and home-like behind all this game of seduction that Bertrand longs to kiss her but he’s not sure he’s allowed to. Frankly, he also longs to do something about the problem that prevents him from concentrating on Beatrice’s performance properly – to take matters into his own hands, so to say – but of that he’s even less sure.   

After he’s finally relieved her from the stocking, his fingers keep stroking her ankle for some seconds more; then he takes his hand away. Beatrice gives him an encouraging smile and moves to the other side of the bed, offering Lemony to take off her other stocking. Snicket turns out to be bolder: he leans down and no, he doesn’t kiss her, he doesn’t dare to, but he presses his forehead to her knee, closing his eyes in rapture. Snicket and his need to worship, literally at times, the people he loves. Bertrand would’ve wondered what that says about his state of mind, but firstly, this is not the most unhealthy need Lemony could have developed after everything he’s been through, and secondly, Bertrand is but a mere mortal and loves the way Lemony nuzzles at his belly before moving down and taking Bertrand’s cock into his mouth.        

“Patience,” Beatrice says when Lemony pulls off her other stocking at last and tentatively reaches out for her again. She’s as turned on as they are: it’s obvious from her voice and the look in her eyes and the way her hardened nipples stand out under the thin lace of her bra although it’s far from cold in the room. She steps back and turns around to go back to the spot by the footboard of the bed – back to her stage – but suddenly stops and notices:  

“You don’t have to suffer though, you know. You just can’t touch me until I let you. But you can touch yourself. In fact, you should,” she smiles playfully, as if drunk. “I want to watch too.”

Bertrand should probably be ashamed of how he makes haste to take his underwear off. He doesn’t manage to, though – a broad hand stops him, suddenly on his crotch.

“If you want to,” Lemony says hoarsely, and if all of this has already felt like too much before, now it is downright unbearable, because he has a voice like melted dark chocolate; had it been tangible, it would have been tempting to dip one’s fingers in it, and then lick them clean. Bertrand looks at him, all flushed, with a ridiculous bedhead caused by their short prelude and the subsequent lying on the pillows, and thinks: does he really believe I’d refuse him?     

“Turn towards me a little,” he orders. “And take off your pants, for crying out loud.”

It must be at that moment that the performance stops being a performance – because they’re not staring at Beatrice non-stop anymore but get sidetracked by each other, and Beatrice isn’t dancing by herself like before but is clearly aware of their presence and watches them just like they watch her. As a matter of fact, she isn’t dancing anymore at all. Her hips still keep swaying but she’s staying at the same spot by the footboard and paying less and less attention to the music – looks like she doesn’t even notice when the song ends, and just keeps on fondling and squeezing her breasts that are still covered by the bra. When she finally takes it off and puts her hands on her breasts again, lifting them and letting them fall, licking her fingers and rubbing her hard nipples, Lemony lets out a deep moan and jerks up his hips. He won’t last long because Bertrand knows how to touch him, heavy and hot and aroused to the limit; because Lemony’s breathing raggedly, and although he’s trying not to miss Beatrice’s single movement, he keeps closing his eyes time and again in bliss and agony. He gets out of step over and over again and his hand slides off Bertrand’s cock and he loosens his grip when he shouldn’t. Just as much enthusiasm, but less skill. Not his forte; Bertrand knows for sure that if Lemony was sucking him off right now, he wouldn’t last long himself. For a moment he imagines what it would have been like, thrusting into Lemony’s hot capable mouth while watching Beatrice, who has climbed onto the bed right beside them, caress herself through her panties and move in a way that makes her breasts bounce as if he’s making love to her now and she’s riding him – and nearly comes on the instant.           

Lemony finishes first. Bertrand doesn’t notice what he’s wiping his hands on: the sheets or his own clothes or that new silvery shawl that must be still knocking around somewhere on the bed. It is probably important but right now he cannot recognize that. What is really important is to kiss him, and Bertrand kisses Lemony first on the lips – he’s so stunned by pleasure that he can just barely kiss back – and then on his sweaty forehead, right by the hairline, hastily breathing in the intoxicating, familiar smell of his hair. 

Bertrand moves aside from him and turns to face Beatrice again, set upon using his own hands to finish what Lemony started – and gets hit in the face with the silk panties. He picks them up and reflexively puts them to his face: soaked through.   

Beatrice pulls her wet, slicked fingers out of herself and extends her hand to him.

She told them they can’t touch her until she lets them.

Now he can.

Bertrand sucks her fingers into his mouth, swallows their salty taste, grabs his cock – and finally lets himself go, and the world around him explodes with unknown colours, and Beatrice takes her fingers out of his mouth when he moans.  

“You’re both so…” he hears her say, as though from afar, her voice slightly surprised and tender. When she drives herself to her orgasm with a few confident touches, her other hand keeps hold of the only part of her outfit she’s still wearing: their pearl necklace.    

Then she collapses on the pillows between them, and the three of them lie side by side for a little while, trying to catch their breath. Bertrand is the first to recover himself; he gets off the bed despite Beatrice’s groan of protest, makes it to the bathroom, pours water on the first towel he gets his hands on, and wipes himself with it. Having thrown the towel into the bathtub, he takes another one from the hanger and wets it under the tap, then brings it into the room and drops it on Lemony’s belly. Lemony flinches.  

“Clean up,” Bertrand tells him, climbs back onto the bed, and puts his arm around Beatrice’s waist. “You’re going to mess up the sheets.”

“I admire your ability to remain sober-minded in any situation,” Lemony murmurs as he cleans himself.

“I admire your ability to use such fancy language in any situation,” Bertrand says. Beatrice giggles.  

“I think,” she props herself up on one elbow and moves closer to Lemony, “he’d use such language even if woken up at three in the morning.”  

“Please don’t try to check if it’s true,” Lemony says, and Beatrice kisses him on one cheek and then on the other and then on the mouth, and Bertrand’s heart aches with tenderness a little when he watches them, but not with jealousy, no.  

Beatrice turns back to him and takes his face into her hands.

“Always thinking about something. Can’t stop for a second, can you?” she asks, affectionate. “What is it about this time?”

“Just the two of you,” Bertrand says.

This time he’s actually telling the truth.


End file.
